


On Armageddon

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon - Manga, Canon Era, Canon Het Relationship, Canon Related, Established Relationship, F/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Secret Marriage, So Married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 22:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6629989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It could be the end of the world as she knows it, and she's pregnant, and she's married, and no one knows.</p>
<p>So, she curls against him. So, she leans to him in the storm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Armageddon

Her ring felt all too obvious from beneath her blouse, carried on the plain, silver chain she’d worn since she first became a Death Scythe, and the familiarity, at least, was comforting and cool around her throat. She wanted to reach up and grasp the plain band, decorated with only a single diamond in the center, but she refrained. It would be the stupidest thing to do at the time as she made her way to the Death Room with Azusa, leading the final two Death Scythes.

The world was falling around her ears, around all of them, crumbling into a crumple with no promise of tomorrow. She felt sick but she didn’t know if it was from nerves or morning sickness: at the moment, she thought both would be equally as disastrous. And above her head, the guillotine archways swayed and swayed and swayed as though in promise. 

As she made her way forward, her heels clicking over the floor with a sharp echo, she took a moment to observe the group gathered before her. Kid, grown so much taller since she first met him, his shoulders a hard line of wire, his spine ramrod straight, speaking with Spirit, who was fiddling with his cufflinks, nervous without doubt. 

Death could see they were there, though he gave her a moment of breath as he spoke to Tezca, turned into a twisted version of himself with a caricature for a smile.

Stein was who her eye immediately strayed to, stayed on. He was always the one she seemed to focus toward, and the dark clouds above his head cast his shadow in a skewed line, stretched and blurred at the edges. Marie took a hard breath in, her fingers itching to reach for the chain around her neck, the chain he made her when she first became a Death Scythe, and clutch it in her fist. She so desperately wanted to slide the ring he gave her onto her finger the way she did when they were alone, together, wondering if there would ever be another day, another moment. 

Instead, she keeps her hands still, at her sides, and Azusa spares a concerned glance at her as Marie finally manages to compose her voice, opening her mouth to alert everyone of their presence. 

“The Death Scythes in charge of Western Africa and Asia have arrived,” she said, her voice deceptively unwavering, and Stein twitches toward her, though he stops himself at the last possible moment, jamming his hands in his lab coat pockets. She doesn’t know if his ring, the same as her own, though lacking the diamond, was there, or around his neck, under the high collar he’d zipped up all the way, hanging on a chain that dangled the ring to the center of his sternum. 

Marie swallowed, stepping forward and avoiding Azusa’s gaze so she could find her way between Kid and Stein, finally bringing her hands behind her as they all arranged themselves in a line, like soldiers, silent as tombstones. Her fingers clutched at one another from behind her, desperate to find some sort of leverage. She felt like she was going to spiral out of her own skin, like she was simply going to dissolve, standing before her Lord.

She wonders if Death knows that she is not going to the moon for him. She wonders if her God understands that she is a Death Scythe in name alone. She is Stein’s weapon, has defied her God’s orders before for him. 

No, she is going into that battle for other reasons, not for God. She is going for Stein. She is going for her maybe-future. For the future of her students and her child. For the future of turning “child” into “children”. 

She stares straight ahead as Death looks at them, almost feeling his unearthly eyes bore into her, and his voice is grave when he speaks.

“As soon as the preparations are done, we’ll debrief,” he begins, and she can almost swear he is looking from one of them to the other, as though determining how long they all have. From behind her, her knuckles strain white, fingers desperate to clutch Stein’s lab coat in a familiar gesture of comfort.

She had grown so used to him, learned, instinctively, to lean upon him in a storm. And he to her. She can almost envision his fists clenching, perhaps tangling his fingers with the chain he might have in his pockets. She’ll find out when they come home, when they are alone.

Death’s voice softens as he focuses on Kid, and she can almost hear how tired he is. “In the meantime, you should meet with the people you want to say goodbye to.”

At that, the silence is thick, and she almost wants to open her mouth and scream. 

This is what she was trained for, however. This was the war she has been tumbling toward for her entire life. It was the war she wanted to avoid, married and retired, with nothing to worry about save for her due date.

Now, she is awaiting baby _and_ an abyss. Beside her, Stein stands tall, leaning to her just barely as though ready to curl around her and protect her from the rest of the world. 

She’s pregnant. She’s married. But she’s not retired and she has a job to do. Perhaps it was naive of her to think her life would have panned out any more easily. As she turned, turned with Stein, the two of them heading toward the lab, to home, she cannot help but wish it had been the way she’d envisioned.

Or, she wishes she had planned for the worst.

* * *

She couldn’t stop making tea. It felt like she desperately needed something,  _anything_ to do. If she let her hands go idle, they’d flutter to her throat, clutch the silver round her neck, twist the ring she’d set back upon her finger the instant she stepped back into the lab.

It seemed Stein was in the same boat as she was, because he wouldn’t stop smoking, and she didn’t want to take a breath of that in. Not while she was pregnant with what he would only refer to as his “little creation”. 

Besides which, he was looking at the massive pile of paperwork they’d been given, working his way through the plans and the possibilities. He’d sat down at the desk the instant they got home, fishing his ring from his pocket and sliding it onto his finger as though it could ground him as he looked on at the war blueprints.

And the will.

She almost dropped the teapot when she remembered it. Death had looked her in the eye when he gave it to her, and she’d only ever had to write one once before. Back when she was sixteen, back when she was shiny and new and all too hopeful. 

Slowly, her hand crept up to her eyepatch, fingers working over the embroidery of the lightning bolt insignia. If she pressed down, she knows all she’d meet would be an empty socket.

She cannot help but fear that she will leave the moon with more sacrificed than just an eye. She wonders _what_ she is willing to give up to keep the people she loves safe.

Before, it would be everything. 

Now, it is everything but her baby. Everything but the people she loves. She would give it all but she can’t. Not now. Not when it was more than _her_ life on the line.

When she looks down, lets her hand drop, she realizes that she has made enough tea for at least ten, as opposed to two. Three, if she counted “Ein”, as Stein called their child.

_Stein._ She wants to curl up to him, again. She doesn’t want to say goodbye, but she wants to be with him.

Yet, she doesn’t want to go out into Stein’s lab, where the air is full of smoke and his demented laughter. Where there is a promise of something sad. Though, she feels as though the darkness that is pressing around her is thick, noxious, and it will be easier to bear it with another person.

When Stein became her buoy in the ocean of life, she can’t pinpoint. A piece of her feels like he’d always been there, somewhere in her soul, since she first met him. Another sneered at her naivety. She wasn’t allowed such romantic thoughts on the eve of the end, the night before she was stepping into the gaping maw of apocalypse.

Her heart throbs painfully at the idea, and she yearns to be near Stein. To simply exist beside him, souls pressed together, his hand on her knee, or on her hand, fingers twining together so she can look down and see the matching set of rings on their ring fingers. The same way she did when they first got married, all alone, in that random courthouse in Las Vegas while they were running from God and the law.

* * *

_“It almost feels like we’re eloping,” she’d said, before they’d decided. Her singular eye had been focused up at him as she played with his hair, carding through the gray strands. Beneath her, she felt the rumble of his body as he laughed, in good spirits from the release he’d found with her. Her other hand was running over his bare chest, which was rising and falling steadily, over the scar across his torso, raised and familiar. They’d found comfort with one another, time and time again, since the fourth day they ran from Death City.  
_

_“Does it?” he’d asked, his voice amused and soft in the way it only was when he spoke to her. She managed a tired, satisfied smile as she nuzzled against him, running her palm over his shoulder and down his arm.  
_

_“It does.”_

_Gently, she stroked over the scarwork on his upper arm before moving farther down, encircling his wrist so she could flip his hand over, her fingers filling the spaces **his** fingers left.   
_

_“Do you have experience in that, Marie?” And she scoffed, though it lacked any bite, because even with the threat of death above their heads, she was too happy from being with him to care. And she knew him too well to expect anything else.  
_

_“What? In eloping? Stop being an ass.”  
_

_He laughed again, this time harder, and she curled up against him, setting her cheek to his chest, right where she could listen in to his heart beating._

_“You’ve always been enamored with marriage.”  
_

_“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eye, detecting his playful tone immediately. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve **been** married, you jerk. You know that.”  
_

_He hummed in amusement, his free hand coming to her hair, and then her cheek, directing her to look at him._

_“Would you like experience, then?”_

* * *

Slowly, she looked up from where she’d been focusing on the murky water of the steeped tea and sighed. Though, this time, it wasn’t weary. As much as his half-assed proposal was the farthest thing from what she’d fantasized as a girl, it had made her so _happy_. 

Or, it made her happy after she threatened to smash him to dust if it was a joke. Her lips twitched up into some semblance of a smile. And, after they’d found Justin and cleared Stein’s name, he was good to his word. She supposed it was smart thinking on them to have brought their IDs, else they would have never been able to go through with it. There was no tux to speak of, and she was still in shorts and they didn’t even have proper rings, but they didn’t really need them for the marriage license. 

Of course, she told him she expected a proper wedding when the entire mess was over and done with.

She just didn’t think she’d have to go through armageddon to have one. 

And, at that thought, the smile her lips had twitched up into dropped, and she stared down at the tray of teacups she’d filled.

She’d made far too much, so she supposed she had to get to work on drinking it, or it would go cold, and it would all be a waste, anyway. Besides, she could almost smell the smoke coming into the kitchen, so her little safe haven was being infringed upon and she had no reason to hole herself up there.

Her belly flopped, and she picked up the tray of tea, ignoring how she was shaking. Frankly, Marie was surprised that the teacups didn’t rattle around, clink together with the force of it, and she knew she needed to calm down. 

She could die. She’d always been prepared for that. But Stein, her husband (and how long had she wanted to call him that?) could die. Her baby could die. _Their_ baby could die. Their future, her, their happily ever after, going up in smoke like the cigarettes Stein promised her he’d stop smoking. 

She gave him a pass, for now. Considering it was, potentially, the end. 

And, as she moved into the room where Stein was, his back to her, she couldn’t help but feel her heart sink when she saw the state he was in. His giggles were manic, giddy and proud. 

“The moon, huh?” he asked, likely grinning, his lips stretched over his clean, white teeth. “Give a mission as squad leader to every Death Scythe.”

Her eyes drooped at his hum, so different from when he’d asked her to marry him, so much more spine chilling. Her body shivering. 

God, he was enjoying it just like he’d found a place to die, and at her displeasure, at her aching sorrow, she watched his hand came up to his screw, twisting it a few times as though to calm himself. It was one thing for him to dissolve into laughter while she was busy making tea. It was another for him to allow himself to do so while she was around. 

As he reached up, his wedding band caught the light, and she almost wanted to sob. She wasn’t even thirty, yet. She hadn’t even had her baby. She didn’t have a proper wedding. She was still being called “Mjolnir” because no one knew they were married. She wasn’t ready to die. She wasn’t ready for _him_ to die. 

She wasn’t ready for _any_ of it.

“Marie,” Stein said, and this time, his voice was far more steady as he pitched his used cigarette in the trash, as per their agreement. 

“I made tea,” she said softly, but she couldn’t mask the bitterness. She couldn’t hide how much she wanted to toss the damn tray to the ground and open her mouth and let the darkening edges of their world swallow her. 

She didn’t do any of those things, especially when Stein swiveled in his chair, turning to look at her. “Come here,” he told her, reading her soul, and she only looked at him, her singular eye tracing over his features as though memorizing. “Marie,” he repeated, and she breathed in deep through her nose.

“Yeah?”

“Come here.”

This time, she did. This time, she let his soul latch onto her own, let the resonance sing between them and she could feel everything the way she always could. She could feel how his mind was buzzing, alive, red, never calming. She could feel how nervous he was, how he was holding so tightly to his sense of self.

And he could feel her, as well. So, when she walked forward, setting the tray on some throwaway pile of paperwork, she didn’t hesitate to settle into his lap, to tuck her head beneath his chin and grasp his lab coat’s lapels in her fists. She didn’t hesitate to burrow her face against his chest, to shake against him, to lean into the touch of his hand as it settled on her lower back.

“Marie,” he said, soothingly, resting his cheek on the crown of her head. And it was all the comfort he needed to give, his gentle iteration of her name, his tenderness. He held her to him as she dangled her legs off the side of his chair, and she felt him move them, swiveling back around so he was facing the desk. 

“You’ll live, Marie,” he told her, and she clutched his lab coat tighter because she knew if he told her she’d live, she’d live. Damn the Kishin, Stein, as leader of their little army, would make everyone keep her safe if he so had to.

At any cost.

At his cost.

She shivered against him, pulling away enough to look up at him, just like that night they’d decided to elope, just like the multiple nights they’d laid down together, finding comforting in each other’s souls, in each other’s bodies.

“And you?” she asked, searching his face, searching his soul.

His expression was soft when she looked at him, and his hand came up to rest on the top of her head. His palm was a gentle, familiar heat, one she knew no one would believe he was capable of giving off. Stein was cold on the best of days to most people. She’d never imagined he’d be so soft with her. With anyone. 

“Franken?” she urged.

“I’ll be fine,” he told her, his thumb rubbing behind her ear.

She said nothing, though her frown was enough. _Lair_ , she wanted to say. The accusation was harsh in her mouth, so she swallowed it down. But he could feel it, anyway. He shook his head, and she could feel his soul thrum against her own, trying to soothe her. She looked to the side as he comforted her in the only ways he knew how, taking note of the will he had set upon the table.

“…you filled yours out?” she asked.

“Mmmm,” he replied, still rubbing behind her ear.

“What happened to ‘I’ll be fine’?” she asked, the bitterness seeping into her voice, into her soul, hardening her. Already, she was preparing to fight. Already, her bones were aching.

“I will be,” was all he answered her with, and she took the moment to snatch up the paper, her eye jumping across the page, taking in every word.

There wasn’t much to read. There was a listing of his estate, his assets, that which could be given.

And her name. Marie Stein. All to her. To her and their unborn baby. 

Her heart felt like it was punched to her throat, and the chain there was cool and comforting, though not nearly as comforting as Stein’s hand, which had roved down from atop her head to the back of her neck, his fingers playing with the silver he’d gifted her so long ago. Her soul welled up and he felt it, tightening his hold on her.

“Franken,” she choked out, turning to look at him just as he cupped her cheek, and she was sure her eye was shining with the tears she didn’t want to shed. Not then. Not when all she wanted to do was wrap herself in his arms and hold him so close to her, she would mold them together. Not when she wanted to breathe his air, to be of his skin.

“You took my last name. I supposed you were entitled to what came with it,” he told her, and it was so like him, her damn husband, to tread so lightly and frankly even in the face of the end. 

She dropped the will as though it burned her. She didn’t want his things. She didn’t want the lab, the equipment, the copyright to his theses and research, Not if he wasn’t there to share it.

And he knew, because her entire soul screamed it, because she was so _scared_. Because, Death, he wouldn’t have filled out that damn will if he was so _sure_. And he never would have given everything to her if he wasn’t absolutely certain she’d make it off that moon, off that battlefield, in one piece.

Her selfless asshole of a husband. She sobbed and the hiccup that accompanied it was pitiful, even to her own ears, but Stein wiped her tears away, streaming down the right side of her face, with his thumb.

From her peripheral, she could make out the gleam of his wedding band. She could feel his soul curl over her own, protection in the rocking storm of the world. And she thinks she managed to ask “What about you?” but she was too caught up in how he felt as he pulled her closer to him, as he breathed in the smell of her hair, as she clutched him to her and forced herself to stop crying. Their resonance swept through her, and she could feel him taking on her sadness, internalizing it, weathering the hurt for her.

Her selfless, stupid, wonderful husband. 

“I’ll be fine,” he told her, again, as her tears dried and she looked at him as he repeated it. “I’ll be fine.”

And when she kissed him, unable to help herself, he tasted like smoke. And when she pushed his lab coat off his shoulders, when she held him, when she opened her mouth to him, her soul to him, her self to him, he asked her to trust him, to trust that he’d be fine.

And, just as she did that night, seemingly so long ago, when they got engaged, she told him “ _I do_.”


End file.
